The Criminological Cultivation of African American Municipal Police

Article Race and Justice 2014, Vol. 4(1) 45-67 ª The Author(s) 2014 The Criminological Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Cultivation of African DOI: 10.1177/2153368713517396 American Municipal Police raj.sagepub.com Officers: Sambo or Sellout Franklin T. Wilson1 and Howard Henderson2 Abstract African American municipal police officers have been historically underrepresented and often face a double marginalization, arguably due to fellow officer and public perceptions. This study represents a first-step criminological cultivation analysis of the quantity and quality of African American municipal police officer depictions in the core cop film genre (1971–2011). Utilizing the unified film population identi- fication methodology, 112 films were identified and examined to determine the overarching messages conveyed through the genre. Findings revealed that White officers were depicted in the lead or joint leading role in 89% (n ¼ 100) and African Americans in 19% (n ¼ 21) of films. However, White officers were predominantly depicted in a serious light unless sharing the lead with a minority, while African American officers were predominantly depicted in a comedic light. Further, the issue of double marginalization was rarely depicted. The potential implications of these portrayals on officer recruitment, retention, and perceived law enforcement legitimacy are discussed and second-step criminological cultivation studies to determine if a cultivation effect exists are proposed. Keywords police, African American, perception, recruitment, retention, media, race and policing, race and public opinion, race/ethnicity, bias in the criminal justice system, criminology and cultivation 1 Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, USA 2 College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA Corresponding Author: Franklin T. Wilson, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Indiana State University, Holmstedt Hall 230, Terre Haute, IN 47809, USA. Email: [email protected] 46 Race and Justice 4(1) Since the days of their systematic exclusion, African American police officers have made huge strides in increasing their representation at all levels of law enforcement (Gabbidon & Greene, 2013). In fact, the presence of minority police officers has been shown to increase the likelihood of perceived departmental legitimacy while also incrementally dismantling the sociopolitical hurdles within the previously excluded field of American policing (Jollevet, 2008). Despite these advances, the African American community remains the (1) most likely to view police negatively, (2) least likely to support and/or call on law enforcement in times of crisis, and (3) least likely to view law enforcement as a career choice (Rocque, 2011). As a result, recruiting minorities into the ranks of American policing remains a sociopolitical and psycho- logical challenge, ultimately impacting the degree and extent to which African Americans seek careers in law enforcement. Consequently, given this supposed ‘‘postracial’’ America, coupled with the consistent negative perceptions of police by the African American community, it is ever more critical that these barriers between the police and the hiring of African Americans remain at the forefront. Given the increase in popular media outlets (Surette, 2007) and the controversial nature of many of the minority–police interactions, it is of no surprise that the media serve as a conduit of these often negative encounters. Research has demonstrated that these media outlets are reflectors and reinforcers of the sociopolitical law enforcement experience (Graziano, Schuck, & Martin, 2010). To date, examinations of media depictions of minority police officers are virtually nonexistent. We maintain this is due to the traditional approaches to academic media studies and the disconnect between media examinations and criminological research regarding law enforcement. Wimmer and Dominick (2003) point out that academic media studies are primarily centered around the antisocial and prosocial effects of specific media content, uses and gratifications, agenda setting by the media, and the cultivation of perceptions of social reality. It is this cultivation of perceptions of social reality to which this article lends its focus. More specifically this article points to the need for criminologists to explore what we are entitling criminological cultivation. Cultivation theory, one of the most widely used theories in mass media studies, hypothesizes that long-term exposure to a repetitive and stable system of messages delivered through media program- ming can have cumulative consequences leading to the gradual adoption of beliefs about the nature of the social world. Cultivation researchers maintain that these messages represent consistent patterns in the portrayal of specific issues, policies, and topics, many of which are in conflict with their occurrence in real life (Wimmer & Dominick, 2003). Similarly, criminological cultivation consists of the development of specific perceptions of any aspect of crime, deviance, and/or the criminal justice system due to long-term exposure to a repetitive system of messages delivered through media outlets. Criminological cultivation studies are differentiated from traditional cultivation studies in that the studies focus primarily on the disjuncture between media depictions and real-life occurrences regarding crime and the criminal justice system. More specifically criminological cultivation studies primarily utilize the criminology and criminal justice peer-reviewed literature to determine the base- line of what real-world occurrences entail. Further, specific emphasis is given to Wilson and Henderson 47 how cultivated perceptions impact various aspects of the real-world criminal justice system. First step of cultivation analyses consist of examinations of large blocks of media content to determine what overarching messages are being conveyed through the medium in question (Wimmer & Dominick, 2003). Second-step cultivation studies utilize these findings to determine if there is an actual cultivation effect. Therefore, the findings presented here represent the first step of the cultivation analysis process and do not seek to identify a cultivation effect. As Mastro and Behm-Morawitz (2005) state ‘‘Although effects cannot be determined from content, such data provide insights into the potential influence of consumption on consumers when viewed from the per- spectives of cultivation theory’’ (p. 110). Therefore, we assert that our findings identify a potentially underexamined variable (i.e., depictions of African American municipal police officers) in the recruitment, acceptance, and retention of African American police officers. The findings of this study point to the need to expand the application of cultivation analysis to the field of criminology and criminal justice research. While this article has potential implications for those individuals employed by or seeking employment within law enforcement, the concept of criminological cultivation should be expanded to all players in the criminal justice system as well as the public’s perception of these individuals. African American Law Enforcement Experience Historical Context Given the history of race relations in the United States it is not surprising that the experience of African American police officers differ considerably from White officers. In examining the history of law enforcement in the United States, there have been two distinct periods during which African Americans participated in law enforcement: post–Civil War and post–World War II (Dulaney, 1996). These refer- ence points were separated by more than half a century, during which Blacks were systematically excluded from employment as police officers, consistent with other outlets of socioeconomic advancement at this time. Therefore, before exploring the quantity and quality of African American police officer portrayals in film, one must first understand the progress made by African Americans in law enforcement, in spite of the documented employment challenges. The first African American police officers in the United States were known to be ‘‘free men of color,’’ who served as members of the New Orleans city guard in 1803 (Dulaney, 1996; Moskos & Jay, 2008). These men held their positions as a result of their status in the city’s unique multiracial society. They sought to establish their connection to the city’s White citizenry and distance themselves from the subservient reality of being Black in the South. It is estimated that at the turn of the 20th century Blacks comprised 2.7% of all law enforcement and firemen (Kuykendall & Burns, 1980). Given the race relations in the country, Black officers experienced differential treatment by their fellow White officers and supervisors. This racist treatment was 48 Race and Justice 4(1) echoed in Rudwick’s (1962) classic research in which he surveyed 130 police departments and found that 53% of the departments required Black officers to request assistance from White officers before they arrested other Whites. In other locales, Black officers were subjected to riding in police cars marked ‘‘Colored Police’’ and were only allowed to police other Blacks (Dulaney, 1996; Sullivan, 1989). It was not until the 1960s that there began to be major advances toward the hiring of Black officers, primarily in the major urban communities across

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